For most of those who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, Nintendo pretty much rule the roost when it came to gaming. And with good reason; Nintendo had the biggest characters, the most fun games, a host of third-party developers well at work, and even a little competition in the form of Sega to help keep it honest. But fate has not been kind to Nintendo, as Sony and Microsoft have stepped in, and a revitalized PC gaming experience has likewise taken a bit of the starch out of Nintendo's sails. A new patent application, meanwhile, has suggested that Nintendo isn't out of the fight yet, and the new console may have something going for it.

The new patent application, which was filed back in February but published only recently, showed a card slot which could accommodate memory cards. An internal hard drive is included, as is a means to connect an external one. Several other units are also on hand, including a processor and similar items.

This has, in turn, given rise to the notion that Nintendo may be, in a sense, returning to the cartridge concept from the disc-based market, though others have suggested that such a system could instead be a means to download games from a central service for storage on the hard drive. Conversely, it could be a modular system as well, allowing games to be downloaded to cards which can be subsequently swapped out as needed.

This idea is what gives me pause. Previous reports suggested that Nintendo was likely to have a lot greater focus on mobile games, a point which reached an apex when Nintendo's last comment came out in early June, denying reports that the NX would use the Android operating system.

What if this new console puts its games on SD cards, which can be transferred readily to mobile devices? The console might step up the graphics or the like, providing a boost as well as a central point to play and store the games. Then, users could route the games to the phone or other mobile device as desired. Naturally, there's nothing to suggest that other than interpretations of earlier reports, but if Nintendo is considering a greater mobile focus, making a console that readily works with mobile could be quite a stride.

Only time will tell, of course, just how this all boils down. But Nintendo may well be planning a new console that has a lot greater mobile connection than some might expect.